


Truth Be Told

by allthegoodnamesaretakendammit



Series: The Boys of Magnolia Crescent [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Confessions, Drama, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Shenanigans, Slow Build, Veritaserum, begins halfway through book 4, canon typical abuse of authority, endgame snarry - Freeform, snape being snape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-20 20:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18131849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthegoodnamesaretakendammit/pseuds/allthegoodnamesaretakendammit
Summary: Harry gets dosed with Veritaserum. The truth comes out, out, out.





	Truth Be Told

 

_“It is Veritaserum—a Truth Potion so powerful that three drops would have you spilling your innermost secrets for this entire class to hear,” said Snape viciously. “Now, the use of this potion is controlled by very strict Ministry guidelines. But unless you watch your step, you might just find that my hand slips—”_

 

\-- _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,_ Chapter 27, page 449.

 

*

 

Snape hovers over Harry like a bad dream, watching closely as Harry chops his ginger roots. All the while, he dangles a vial of Veritaserum between his fingers and hisses threats over Harry’s head, just loud enough to make sure that the rest of the class can hear. But behind him, Harry can hear Hermione, too, whispering furiously to Neville, “No, don’t add the bile yet or it’ll—”

 

Evidently, Snape is too wrapped up in bullying Harry to pay her any mind. “Three drops is all it will take. And the moment the words _boomslang skin_ cross your lips...” Harry’s cutting grew quicker and rougher as he went on, “And they will. There will be no helping it. It will come bursting out of you—”

 

Neville’s cauldron experiences a mild explosion. It shoots out a comet of green smoke and sends a burning smell wafting through the room. Snape sets the crystal vial down on the teacher’s desk and sweeps over to Neville, looking ready to hex him into next week. Harry breathes a sigh of relief, gladly accepting a moment of reprieve and applying himself fully to the task of chopping all of these stupid roots. Of course, that’s when Draco decides to levitate the vial off of Snape’s desk and hover it in front of Harry’s face, making its clear contents tinkle as they splashed around inside.

 

Harry can hear Ron hissing, “Cut it out, Malfoy!” even as Harry swats at it with his knife. But Draco just sniggers from his corner of the classroom and dangles it in front of Harry’s nose again. The third time he does it, Ron gives up on arguing with him and pulls out his wand, muttering, “ _Depulso!_ ”

 

Unfortunately, Ron hasn’t got the hang of the Banishing Charm just yet. Which is probably why the vial erupts all over Harry, splashing into his mouth and dousing his robes. He tries to spit it out, but it’s no use. Most of it has already soaked into his tongue or gone up his nose. And it was  _way_ more than just three drops.

 

“ _Potter!_ ” Snape roars from across the room.

 

“Merlin, you’re scary,” Harry says, rubbing at his potion-stung eyes. A wave of astonished sniggers passes over the entire classroom. “You’re all laughing because you’re afraid of him, too,” Harry tells them, feeling distantly horrified.

 

“Riveting as I find all this,” Snape sneers as he stalks away from Neville’s ashy green cauldron. “Is there any particular reason you find me terrifying today? Spare no detail,” he adds nastily.

 

“You’re really tall and your face always looks threatening. You look exactly like I’d always imagined the bogeyman,” Harry can’t help but say as he rakes a hand through his wet bangs, the students around him giggling anew. “Also, Moody implied that you were a Death Eater the other night, and now I really don’t know what to think of you.” Snape stops dead in his tracks, standing completely motionless in the middle of the room as the class falls silent. It’s the kind of silence you only hear a few times in your life. Like when someone’s just died. Which gets Harry thinking about his parents and how they’d died and it must be the sheer amount of Veritaserum that he’d swallowed that makes him say: “I remember. I remember my parents dying. That’s why I faint around Dementors. I hear my mother screaming for Voldemort not to kill me.”

 

The silent faces go white. No one is even pretending to slice their ginger or crush their scarab beetles anymore.

  
Ron leans across their shared desk and makes a noble effort to cover Harry’s mouth with a hand coated in beetlejuice. Harry ducks away from it, saying, “Gross.”

 

“ _Harry,_ ” Ron groans, a mixture of exasperation and despair.

 

“Everyone always says my name like that. Like it’s either a really good thing or a really bad thing. But it’s not. It’s just me.” Snape is standing stock-still at the center of the room, as if frozen in time. His eyes are locked on Harry like there’s a terrible secret written across Harry’s face. So Harry opens his mouth to tell Snape that he’s staring, which makes Ron try to cover Harry’s mouth again. Harry jerks out of the way for a second time, but his body is moving slower now. Which is weird. “Woah,” he says, looking down at his own hand as he wiggles his fingers experimentally. They’re moving about half as fast as he’s telling them to. “I feel strange.”

 

And suddenly, Hermione’s at his elbow, telling him, “It’s alright, Harry. There haven’t been any documented cases of Veritaserum overdoses. Consuming lot of it can have the effect of a muscle relaxer and make you very biddable, but that’s about it.”

 

Harry blinks up at her and says, “You’d make a great professor.” Hermione blushes bright pink, looking extremely pleased and also a little embarrassed. Harry can almost _feel_ the Veritaserum soaking further into his system, making him relax back into his seat and say, “If you were a boy, people wouldn’t make fun of you for being smart and talking so much.”

 

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione says tightly, but this time it sounds like she’s on the verge of tears.

 

And Harry feels bad about that. He really does. But Harry is filled to the brim with the need to speak, to confess everything. It’s only increasing as the Veritaserum sinks in deeper and deeper, and his own anger and discomfort are getting harder to hold onto. When he tries to stuff his sleeve in his mouth to shut himself up, he finds that he can barely twitch his index finger.

 

And so, the truth comes rushing out: “I didn’t put my name in the Goblet of Fire. Everyone thinks I did it for the attention--but I hate the attention. Hate it.”

 

It’s so silent down here, Harry can actually hear the lapping of the Black Lake. Which of course prompts him to say, “Sirius Black is innocent.”

 

It figures that _that’s_ what gets Snape moving again. Harry watches him approach through the bits of potion still beaded up on his spectacles. Snape looks about as terrifying as possible: ashen-faced with rage, lips pressed into a tight white line, his eyes enormously black and still locked onto Harry like they’ve been spelled to stay there.

 

“I wish you didn’t hate me so much. I’d make it better if I could, but everything I do just seems to make you angrier,” Harry tells him as he comes closer and closer, like an oncoming storm. And then: “You hate me and you try to make me miserable, but you’ll never be as good at it as Aunt Petunia. Never—”

 

Snape raises his wand and makes a waving, jabbing motion and Harry suddenly finds himself unable to speak, his tongue thick and uncooperative. Snape whirls around, marches toward the door, and opens it with a slam, glaring at Harry to signal him to follow. Harry shoves his things into his bag with nerveless fingers and stands, not wanting to disobey but also not wanting to get any closer to Snape because of the look in his eye: a fury so dark that it seems unending, directionless. Figuring that they’re headed for Madame Pomfrey, Harry walks toward him anyway.

 

The door bangs shut behind him as soon as he’s in the corridor, and he can’t help the reflexive jump of his shoulders when it startles him. Looks like even his body won’t lie, now. He can see Snape’s eyes lingering on the set of his shoulders before he whirls around with a swish of his robes and prowls down the corridor. Harry lingers there for a moment, listening to what’s going on behind the oak door. It’s as silent as a dungeon ought to be.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part two of a probably-seven-part series. If you'd like sneak peeks and whatnot, check out my Tumblr: letalavelle.tumblr.com.


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